Canon Inc. and Toshiba Corp. said Thursday they will jointly develop new-generation wafers that will produce faster, more energy-efficient semiconductors.
Toshiba, a leading electronics maker, aims to produce digital consumer electronics and mobile devices using new silicon-on-insulator wafers, possibly beginning in 2004. Canon, Japan's biggest office machine maker and a major maker of semiconductor equipment, began development studies on SOI wafers in 1990 and plans to supply its SOI wafers to Toshiba on a commercial basis, a Canon spokeswoman said.
An SOI wafer has an insulating layer that separates the silicon film, on which circuits are etched, from the base substrate. With the flow of electricity to the substrate inhibited, the chip can perform some 30 percent faster than conventional chips.
In addition, circuits are more readily squeezed on to an SOI wafer and so the chip can more than halve power consumption.